after gathering under the shadow of spaceship earth (aka the oversized golf ball), we headed towards world showcase & literally ran around the entire world. all while, disney employees hooted & hollered, cheering us on.

really & truly, nothing makes you feel better than a personal cheer squad – runDisney really does know how to create magic in every mile.

we concluded our early morning jaunt in germany where we headed inside the biergarten restaurant for a warm runDisney welcome from bob hitchcock (mr. runDisney) & faron kelly (director of sports marketing & communications for WDW), which was followed by a little chat with jeff galloway, anton van zyl, tara gidus & chef steff.

jeff galloway was inspiring as always. having attended several other runDisney meetups, i’m always impressed that i always walk away learning something new from jeff galloway.

up next was my new race crush anton van zyl. at that time of the meetup, he was the 2-time wine & dine half marathon winner.

although, following the meetup, he once again won the wine & dine half marathon, for the third year in a row – even though he stopped to take 17 pictures along the way! amazing!

& finally we had a chance to hear from tara gidus & chef steff (the sports chef) who talked with us about what & how we should be eating as athletes (their words, not mine – i definitely don’t consider myself an athlete).

disclosure: i was invited by runDisney to attend the entire event weekend as media – meaning they were kind enough to cover my hotel expenses at the fabulous boardwalk inn (betcha started singing “under the boardwalk,” because i know i did), meals, and all of my race fees.

Kelly,
Great re-cap on the event. I can't wait for WDWMarathon weekend. I'm hoping to do the meetup event then. So glad you two Cali girls got some Southern warmth while you were there. Can't wait to meet you in January!

I loved attending the runDisney Meet-Up! I think my favorite part was running with Anton, we chatted for a bit and he's really interesting, and I seriously can not believe he stops for pictures and still wins races! Amazing.
Thanks for the link back to my meet-up post!

It was fun to follow the #WineDineHalfMeetUp participants on Twitter & Instagram. It was almost as fun as being there in person.
You know we LOVE runDisney & hope we can join the Walt Disney World Marathon and/or Princess Half Marathon Meet Up(s) in 2013! Fingers crossed! :-)